hey guys elite clinical research group here today we're gonna be talking about
what is needed to break into the clinical research field as many of you
guys probably know by now breaking into the clinical research field is no easy
task requires a lot of hard work a lot of dedication a lot of follow up a lot
of sweat and a lot of Tears just because you may have a big fancy degree of
Masters of Public Health masters in clinical research a MD even or a dentist
degree or whatever advanced degree you might have you may think that you were
entitled to a position in clinical research but that could not be further
from the truth this is an industry just like every other industry and just
because you have a degree an advanced degree in that industry does not mean
you know exactly how to do the job knowing how to do the job as well as a
primary importance in this field and employers really value someone who can
come in and provide instant value and impact just like in every other field so
you need to be able to have instant value and impact in order to be
successful in your job search and we're today we're going to talk about how you
can provide that so one of the areas that recruiters and hiring managers look
at obviously is your education so one of the things they're gonna look at is what
degree did you go to college what did you study in college so you may think
clinical research that may require a science background like biology or
chemistry and that certainly may help but for all of you other people who may
have made it in business or finance or psychology or any of the other
humanities don't think because you made it in there that you can't get into
clinical research because at the end of the day what they really care about is
experience and we'll talk about that in our second point but it definitely helps
if you have a degree because you can forego some of that other experience
you'll see on the job applications they'll say blah blah blah blah blah
we're looking for somebody who has a college degree for the entry-level
position a college degree or someone who has two years of experience in clinical
research without a college degree so even if you don't have a college degree
there's ways to get into this field there's ways to get into this field and
start getting an experience and move up in this field even without a college
degree so don't be discouraged if you don't have a college degree I know
someone for example who doesn't have a degree but is a CRA so I'm sure there's
there's other people out there like that as well the second and most important
way to get into clinical research is your experience what previous experience
do you have in clinical research did you work in a lab did you do bench research
while you're in college or before was that your job after you after you out of
college did you do bench research have you had any other pharma experience did
you work in the manufacturing sector or did you work for any pharma companies
that certainly helped to or have you worked in the CRO industry before maybe
you're on the more business side or maybe you're on the sales side of things
but you want to transition over to the more clinical side of things it
definitely helps so any way you can get in and get some experience in pharma or
the CRO space definitely helps getting into the clinical research part of the
business I would say bench research and manufacturing are two of the most common
experiences I see on people's resumes when it comes to trying to break into
clinical research so those two are always good options but any pharma
research experience or any bench research experience or just any
experience in that sector is beneficial I would say the second most important
part besides having actual clinical research experience is what marketable
skills do you possess do you have experience taking meeting minutes
because there's a lot of meetings I have any clinical research and someone has to
keep track of what is talked about so do you have meeting minutes
experience do you have experience using Excel spreadsheets there's a lot of
trackers that a lot of things that are kept track of with on Excel spreadsheets
and you need to know how to navigate about them around that do you have
experience writing lots of emails in using Microsoft Outlook they they had
these technical skills at the bottom of of you guys's resumes and these are
often overlooked but these are vastly important because you're gonna be using
these throughout your career in clinical research every day all day you're
writing emails to people so you need to be able to know how to write a good
email and this is something that the recruiters will see when you are
responding back and forth with them and the hiring managers when you're talking
back and forth with them how are your communication skills not just written
but verbal as well how are you over the phone are you
comfortable and confident cool and collected while you're talking on the
phone so these are skills that you want to make sure are good when you're trying
to get over to the clinical research space maybe do you have any experience
with GCP IC h guidelines have you had to research those before or have you just
done some research on your own that's definitely something to keep in mind do
you have any experience with data management data analysis and data
tracking these are all very important things that recruiters and hiring
managers are looking for in the clinical research space since this industry is
very remote that means that everything is on the computer everything has to be
kept track of there's lots of data to be kept track of do you have the ability to
maintain that data keep track of it analyze it if necessary those are very
important skills to have on your resume and highlight if you can if those are in
your past jobs so if you're in lab if you were
bench research in a lab and you had to keep track of your findings that's
something to definitely keep track of on your resume and highlight because that's
that's a very important skill in the clinical research space so to summarize
we talked about three main things that you've got to have in order to break
into the clinical research space that is education what is what education level
do you have don't be discouraged if you don't have a college degree but it
certainly helps and it doesn't exactly matter what college degree you have
whether it's science or business or psychology or anything humanities
related it doesn't matter you can find skills in your previous work that will
apply and be positive attributes in the clinical research space second and most
importantly research experience what previous research experience or farming
experience do you have they like people that have lots of experience analyzing
and maintaining and tracking data but still you can highlight some of your
other positive experience and that should be good enough as well just as
long as you highlight it in a good way but data analysis and tracking is a
really strong one that I've seen work for a lot of people so if you have that
in your previous jobs or your previous work experience please make sure that
you highlight that and last what about your other marketable skills that you've
been working on and practicing throughout the life of your professional
career your email and communication your email and communication skills make sure
those are up to par because you're gonna be using that day in and day out make
sure that your do you have an experience with I CH GCP have you worked with that
in your past or have you just looked it up on like on the computer make sure
that's noted that you have knowledge about that do you speak another language
huge huge huge positive attribute and marketable skill that you can add to
your resume because this is a global industry we talk with people and deal
with people of all walks of life from all over the world so if you speak
multiple languages that's a huge asset for any clinical research organization
or pharma company so make sure you keep those
in line on your resume and have those highlighted throughout alright guys
thank you so much for watching this video go ahead and like it and share
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see you guys next time take care